The Road to ETH Zurich from Afghanistan

Aziz Mujahid here, coming from the Nangarhar Province of Eastern Afghanistan. I am an international student of class 2021 pursuing a Masters of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Sustainable Water Resources at ETH Zurich. I completed my undergrad studies in Civil Engineering in Pakistan followed by a Master’s degree in Turkey. It was during my final year of undergraduate studies, when I was searching for the best engineering institutes in the world, that I found out that ETH Zurich is one of the most prestigious engineering institutes in the world. From that day onwards, I wanted to study here.

Afghanistan is a relatively conservative, old-fashioned country that places a greater emphasis on culture. The landlocked geography of the country has been in turmoil since the 1970s. The long years of war have destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. The scars of war are visible in the education sector, too. However, younger men and women, including myself, are keen to rebuild the country. I want to mention the specific challenges that the younger generation has been through: war, insecurity, and a lack of learning opportunities. As we lost a generation, or two, to the wars, very few educated Afghans have been left behind to teach and share their experiences with the younger generation. We lost too much, and in a period when the rest of the world was thriving at a pace faster than ever.

However, when I was about to start my journey – a journey that I was more than happy to follow – I was struck by the flight restrictions imposed in my home country due to the change in political spectrum. This delay was followed by the death of my dearest brother due to cancer. The start of my much anticipated journey was dampened and I nearly lost motivation. With support of my family, I gathered myself back up and decided to continue the road towards ETH Zurich and Switzerland. I was about three weeks late, but nonetheless I was pleased to finally arrive.

Before saying anything else, I would like to personally thank Dr. Darcy Molnar for her support throughout the application procedure, throughout my journey, and the follow-up afterwards. If it were not for her, I would have found it very difficult to find my way to ETH.

Missing home is something I guess you can find common among all the expats. Apart from my family, the most I miss about my home country is the food. Despite I am not a very food lover person, but the Afghan cuisine is very good, and I am not biased about it, one must try it to disagree. However, I must say I am lucky to be enjoying the food here too. Since I am cheese lover and you cannot find better place than Switzerland for the best cheese, I had to try the very delicious fondue (a cheese dish) at the home of cheese, and I loved it. For Switzerland, I was expecting it to be much colder weather; however, to my surprise, it has very pleasant weather and the winter is not as extreme as in Afghanistan. I know many will disagree, but for me this is a very pleasant and mild weather.

Before coming to ETH Zurich, I set my bar high for the standard of education that I was going to encounter, and I must say I am not disappointed. I joined late, but my course mates and other colleagues helped me to catch up on what I had missed in class. In just a short time, I have enjoyed the atmosphere and how it has challenged me. I thought that the culture and language would be a barrier, but to my surprise I adjusted very quickly to Zurich and the foreign language does not seem to be an issue for me as so many people speak English.

ETH Zurich is a world class university with a remarkable reputation. I am ready for any challenge it will put forward. I want to fully utilise my time here to learn from the experiences not only from my professors and instructors, but also from my colleagues and other international friends that I will be making throughout my journey. I am not here just to sit in front of a table, so I am making sure to balance my time and fully explore the natural beauty of this country in between my studies.

The challenge that most of us encounter when we move to a new city or country is the social environment. I am happy to say that Zurich was good to me as I was able to set myself quickly into the social life of Zurich. Much like here, in Afghanistan we visit friends, cousins and relatives quite often, sometime more than once in a week. The culture of gathering on occasions, dinner invitations and going out with family and friends are very much the soul of social life in Afghanistan. In Zurich, since I was able to make new friends in short time, we go to watch a football match or have a lunch outside. I sometimes enjoyed calm places and Zurich offers me that since apart from the city centre it is relatively calm, so alongside my friends we usually go enjoy a cup of coffee.

The beautiful landscape of the city keeps me on my feet exploring it every chance I get. The buzzing city centre always relaxes me from my work stress, and I visit it whenever I have the opportunity. The lake and the calmness around it are by far my favourite spots whenever I seek serenity.

I am lucky that COVID restrictions have been eased, otherwise I would have missed the opportunity to explore the city as I can now. The ease in restrictions helps me to develop stronger bonds with my classmates and learn from the esteemed professors in a face-to-face class environment.

Since the world keeps on advancing, I want to keep on learning as my favourite English poet Robert Frost says, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep”. I want to pursue a doctorate program in Water Resources after the completion of my MAS. Afghanistan is prone to climate change more than any other very low carbon producing country. Since it is an arid country, the water is, and will remain, an unanswered challenge if not enough is done. People are forced to migrate from places where water is now scarce only to find it is also scarce in other regions. Even in the capital, Kabul the situation is becoming dire, the groundwater levels are falling at a rapid pace. If nothing is done to control the situation, water will soon become a luxury commodity in Afghanistan. I want to be a part of the legacy of the Afghan engineers and scientist who are working day and night to find answers to the increasing water scarcity. I also want to make sure that I am not the last person from Afghanistan to study at ETH Zurich or to pursue a technical education. I want others in my country to have the opportunity to learn from the Swiss experience and to advance in fields of science and technology as Switzerland has been leading the world on this front.

Aziz Mujahid was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and grew up in Peshawar, Pakistan. He is a self-proclaimed extrovert with a pinch of introvert traits. He did his graduation in Pakistan and his Master’s in Turkey and is now pursuing an MAS in Sustainable Water Resources at ETH Zurich.

Aziz is on Instagram